xanth 40 - isis orb Read Online Free PDF Page A

see the larger picture, whatever it was.
    Yet this different section had to contain a hint of some kind. What was the point of it, otherwise? He peered more closely at it.
    There was a patch of white pebbles with dark dots, looking like some kind of candy. He picked one up and looked closely at it.
    It looked back at him. It was an eyeball! Yet it smelled of candy.
    “You going to eat the eye candy?” Alec inquired in the tone of a sneer.
    Hapless hastily put it back in the pile.
    Several bees flew over to inspect the candy. Some eyes seemed to be honey flavored. The bees picked up the honey, then buzzed crazily, rubbing themselves off. It wasn’t enough; they fell to the ground, looking like little bee houses.
    “Stupid bees,” Alec said. “They’re allergic to honey. It makes them break out in hives.”
    This was getting him nowhere. But he looked once more—and spied a small tree growing in the center of the crazy area. It was as if anything close to the tree was changed. Why? What would cause a change from order to disorder?
    Then he got it. Reverse wood! It was reversing whatever came near. Maybe the roots of other plants were touching its roots, underground. So a plant became a brick. And—
    Hapless found a handkerchief and wrapped it around his hand. Then he reached down to pick a leaf from the tree. The white handkerchief became a black sock, reversed, but still protected his hand.
    Hapless brought it to the donkey. “What do you think of this, Alec?”
    “It’s nothing but a leaf,” the animal complained. He nipped it from Hapless’s hand and swallowed it. “Edible foliage, what else?”
    “What is my best way through this Challenge?” Hapless asked him.
    “Get on my back and ride on out.” Then Alec looked surprised. “Did I just say that?”
    “You did,” Hapless agreed, getting on his back.
    “Why?”
    “Because you just ate a leaf of reverse wood. It changed you from obnoxious to helpful. Obviously you know the way out, because there’s not enough grazing here in the glade for you to remain here full time.”
    “Oh, bleep.” But the donkey walked to the other side of the glade, nosed aside a curtain of hanging vines, and marched on out through the aisle revealed. Hapless had thought outside the box again and found the unexpected key to the Challenge.
    Then he was in a hall with two doors. Beside each door stood a young man. The doors looked much the same, and so did the boys; they might be twins. One door was labeled NULL, the other VOID. The boys had name tags saying the same.
    Hapless approached them cautiously. “Do you folk answer questions?”
    “Some,” Null responded. “I can stop a Happening. My brother can reverse a prior Happening. We will gladly do so if asked.”
    “What’s a Happening?”
    Null shrugged. “Anything that happens. It’s different every time.”
    “What’s behind the doors?”
    “A Happening.”
    “So I can go in there, and if I don’t like it I can ask you to stop it, and you will?”
    “Exactly.”
    “What’s the catch?”
    “I will do it only once.”
    “So I’d better not make the same mistake twice.”
    “Well, my brother might help you the second time.”
    “And if I don’t go through one of those doors, I won’t make it past this Challenge?”
    The boy smiled. “That’s it. So consider carefully.”
    “What’s there to consider? I need to make it through.”
    Null shrugged. “Your choice.”
    Hapless shrugged back. He saw no real choice. “I’ll try your door.” He opened it and stepped through.
    He was in darkness, and the footing was slippery. He fell on his rump and slid helplessly down somewhere. Then he came up against something and felt something else wrap around him. What was happening?
    A glow developed, expanding into a light. Now he could see. He didn’t like it.
    He was on a kind of pedestal in a deep pit, securely bound by a rope that wrapped several times around him. He felt like a living sacrifice on an